Reborn From Ashes: Divorcing The Billionaire
I was tied to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, the heavy stench of gasoline suffocating me.
Ten steps away, a masked kidnapper slammed a loaded Glock onto a metal barrel and forced my husband, Alvie, to make a sick choice.
"The wife or the mistress. You only get to walk out of here with one."
Alvie didn't even blink.
He walked straight toward the dark corner where his mistress, Gail, was crying. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, shielding her, and guided her toward the exit.
He never looked back. He didn't cast a single glance over his shoulder. To him, I was already a corpse, just trash left on the pavement.
The kidnapper laughed and tossed a lighter onto the soaked concrete floor.
A wall of ghostly blue fire erupted instantly, swallowing me whole. The absolute agony of my skin blistering and melting shattered my sanity.
In my last moments, consumed by the inferno, I couldn't understand how the man I had loved and served so submissively could leave me to burn alive. My heartbreak quickly morphed into a hatred far deeper than the flames.
Then, I violently jerked awake.
I shot up from the bed, gasping for cold air, my hands frantically checking my perfectly smooth, unburned skin.
I looked at the desk clock. I had returned to exactly four years ago, the morning of the annual Gallagher family gathering.
The fragile, naive wife died in that warehouse. This time, I am going to destroy them both.
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Chapter 2
Gene grabbed her black Hermès Birkin bag and followed Alvie's path. Her high heels clicked against the cold concrete floor of the underground parking garage, a steady, rhythmic sound like a ticking metronome.
The driver opened the door of the black Bentley. Gene slid into the backseat. She moved all the way to the opposite side, pressing her shoulder against the door panel, putting as much physical distance between herself and Alvie as the leather seat allowed.
Alvie got in a second later.
During the two-hour drive to Long Island, the silence in the car was suffocating. Alvie shifted uncomfortably. He cleared his throat three times, attempting to start a conversation to smooth over the disastrous morning.
Every time he opened his mouth, Gene simply closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the window. Her absolute, freezing indifference choked the words right out of his throat.
The Bentley finally slowed down, turning through the massive wrought-iron gates of the Gallagher family estate in the Hamptons. The tires crunched over the gravel before stopping smoothly in front of the grand fountain.
Gene pushed her own door open before the driver could reach it.
She stepped out and inhaled a deep breath of the crisp, salty ocean air. She straightened her spine, pulling her shoulders back. She walked toward the heavy oak front doors-the same doors that had represented nothing but humiliation in her past life.
The butler pulled the doors open.
Inside the sprawling, opulent living room, Eleanor Gallagher sat on a velvet sofa. The matriarch was surrounded by a circle of wealthy socialites, sipping tea from delicate porcelain cups.
Blair, Alvie's younger sister, was leaning against the marble fireplace. The moment she saw Gene walk in wearing the sharp black suit, Blair let out a loud, exaggerated scoff.
Eleanor placed her teacup on the saucer with a sharp clink. Her brows pulled together in a deep frown. Her eyes dragged up and down Gene's outfit with pure disdain.
"You look like a black widow heading to a funeral," Eleanor snapped, her voice carrying across the room. "Is this how you dress for a family gathering?"
The socialites sitting around the coffee table raised their silk handkerchiefs to their mouths, hiding their cruel little smiles. They waited for the poor, commoner daughter-in-law to cower.
The old Gene would have stammered an apology and run upstairs to change.
The new Gene stopped in the center of the room. She met Eleanor's harsh glare head-on. A slow, mocking smile spread across her face.
"I am dressed for a funeral, Eleanor," Gene said. Her flawless Upper East Side accent-a polished remnant of the elite Swiss boarding school she had attended on a full scholarship-was sharp and precise, her tone dripping with ice. "I'm mourning the rapid decline of the Gallagher family's taste."
The living room went dead silent.
Eleanor's eyes widened in absolute shock. Her mouth parted slightly. She couldn't believe the weak, pathetic woman standing before her had just spoken back.
Blair pushed off the fireplace, her face twisting with rage. She pointed a manicured finger right at Gene's face.
"You ungrateful gold digger," Blair spat. "You're nothing but a leech! You're only allowed in this house because of that ironclad prenup!"
Gene didn't flinch. She took one step forward, closing the distance. Her eyes were sharp as scalpels.
"A leech?" Gene tilted her head. "That's an interesting word coming from someone who maxed out three credit cards last month and had debt collectors calling the corporate office."
Blair's face flushed a violent, blotchy red.
The socialites shifted in their seats, their eyes darting between Blair and Gene, hungry for the scandal.
Eleanor slammed her hand down on the glass coffee table. She shot up from the sofa.
"Shut your mouth!" Eleanor shrieked. "Apologize to your sister immediately and go to your room!"
Gene let out a dark, humorless laugh. She looked around the room at the sea of fake, horrified faces.
"The only people who need to apologize are the parasites living off a name they do nothing to build," Gene said coldly.
Blair let out a furious scream. She lunged forward on her stilettos, raising her right hand high in the air, aiming a vicious slap right at Gene's cheek.
Gene's eyes narrowed. Her muscles coiled instantly. She planted her feet, ready to dodge and strike back.
But before she could move, a large, powerful hand shot out from her periphery.
The hand clamped down around Blair's wrist in mid-air, stopping the slap dead in its tracks.
Gene turned her head in surprise. It was Alvie. He had been standing silently near the entryway the entire time.
Alvie's jaw was clenched so tight the muscles ticked. The veins on the back of his hand bulged as he shoved Blair's arm away with brutal force. Blair stumbled backward, her heels skidding on the rug.
"Are you out of your mind? !" Eleanor gasped, clutching her chest. "You're attacking your own sister for this outsider?"
Alvie's breathing was erratic. The terrifying images from his dream-the stock plummeting, his life ruined after Gene left him-flashed behind his eyes.
"She is my wife," Alvie yelled, his voice echoing off the high ceilings. "She is not an outsider!"
Eleanor and Blair stared at him like he had lost his mind.
Gene narrowed her eyes. Her internal alarms were blaring. This wasn't love. This was a sick, twisted form of control.
Alvie turned to Gene. He reached out, trying to place his hand on the small of her back, attempting to play the role of the protective husband in front of the crowd.
Gene sidestepped him immediately. She didn't try to hide her revulsion.
Alvie's hand hung suspended in the empty air. His face flushed with a mix of deep embarrassment and rising anger. He gritted his teeth and shot a lethal glare at Blair.
Blair cradled her wrist, her eyes welling with angry tears. She opened her mouth to scream again.
Suddenly, the heavy, measured sound of footsteps echoed from the grand entryway.
The chaotic living room instantly fell into a suffocating silence. It was as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Everyone froze, their eyes fixed on the arched doorway.
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7.2
In the roaring flames of the abandoned warehouse, my skin blistered and peeled.
Through the crackling fire, my sister Elara's malicious voice echoed. She told me my husband, Damien, was dead, and it was all my fault.
For years, I had treated Damien like a monster. I fought him, threw tantrums, and desperately tried to escape our marriage, all because I blindly followed Elara's advice.
"Remember, the harder you fight, the more disgusted he'll get."
She texted me things like that, telling me to smash vases over his head and run away, claiming she was protecting me.
In reality, she was poisoning my mind, stealing my valedictorian spot at university, and plotting to crawl into my billionaire husband's bed.
My foolish rebellion cost me everything, ultimately leading to Damien's tragic death and my own fiery end.
As the massive explosion tore my consciousness to shreds, I finally understood who truly loved me and who the real monster was.
I died suffocating on my own agonizing regret, wishing I could tear Elara apart.
Then, a rush of freezing air punched into my lungs.
I opened my eyes to the crisp scent of cedar and mint. I was back seven years ago, on the very night our marriage was supposed to go to hell.
This time, looking at Damien's flawless, unscarred face, I didn't push him away.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and made a silent vow: I would make every single person who ever hurt him bleed.
8.4
Carissa's son was dying in the ICU, and the bone marrow match had just failed.
The billionaire father, Guilford Gates, cornered her with a cruel ultimatum: naturally conceive a "savior sibling" to save their son. But what shocked Carissa more was his family's sudden accusation that she had heartlessly sold her baby to them three years ago.
"You sold your own flesh and blood to us for five million dollars, so your body belongs to the Gates family."
She was dragged into their gilded estate, treated like a filthy, rented womb. Guilford's new fiancée mocked her, the matriarch humiliated her, and Guilford looked at her with pure disgust. When she desperately tried to feed her sick son and accidentally made him vomit, Guilford violently shoved her away and banned her from the room.
Carissa was devastated and entirely confused. She had never seen a single cent of that five million. Driven by a desperate need for the truth, she investigated and uncovered a horrifying reality: her own father and stepmother had secretly trafficked her baby to the billionaire behind her back, leaving her to bear the ultimate blame.
Looking at the bank transfer record bought with her son's life, the last shred of Carissa's vulnerability died.
She signed the conception contract without asking for a single penny. She was going to use the Gates family's immense power to destroy the blood relatives who sold her, and she would survive this hell to take back her son.
8.2
I went to a private clinic for a routine physical, only to find out I was pregnant.
It was impossible. I took my birth control every single day. But when the doctor tested my pills, they turned out to be high-purity vitamin placebos. My billionaire husband, Denton, had been systematically replacing my medication.
Yet, on our anniversary, he brought my sister Beverly home, demanding a divorce so he could marry her. When I refused to sign a settlement that left me with nothing, he froze my accounts and blacklisted me across New York.
My own father disowned me. When an old friend offered me a job just so I could afford prenatal care, Denton launched a ruthless financial attack to bankrupt his firm.
Then, Beverly got into a car crash. Denton's bodyguards dragged me off the street and forced me into a hospital trauma room. Beverly was hemorrhaging, and I was the only blood match.
I cried and begged Denton to stop, desperately trying to protect my fragile pregnancy without exposing my baby to the monster who controlled my life.
"Please, my body can't handle this. Don't do this to me!"
But he just looked at me with pure disgust and ordered his men to strap me to the chair, forcing the needle into my vein while threatening to kill me if his mistress died.
As I dragged my bleeding, cramping body out of the hospital into the freezing snow, my last shred of hope died.
I touched my stomach and made a vow: I would disappear, and I would make them all pay.
7.2
Azura Briggs was just a broke college student working freezing valet shifts to pay her adoptive mother's crushing medical debt.
Her desperate life shattered the night a bulletproof Maybach violently cornered her in an alley, and a ruthless billionaire kidnapped her by mistake.
After a harrowing escape, Azura was forced to take a humiliating "plus-one" gig at a high-end gala just to survive. But her date turned out to be the billionaire's arrogant nephew, who promptly abandoned her to the wolves. Cornered by a sleazy executive and his psychotic wife, Azura was publicly slapped, her dress torn, and left bleeding on the floor while hundreds of elites watched in disgust.
Just as she prepared to fight to the death, the crowd violently parted. Hunter Mcintosh, the terrifying man who had kidnapped her days ago, dropped to his knees in the broken glass and wrapped his bespoke jacket around her trembling shoulders.
Azura was completely paralyzed. Why was the monster who threatened her life now destroying billionaires just to protect her?
But the illusion of safety didn't last. Trapped in his Maybach hours later, Hunter threw a draconian employment contract at her feet.
"Sign it, and her care is covered. Forever."
He knew exactly how to break her. He was offering to pay off her mother's debt, but only if she signed her life away to become his personal assistant. With no other way out, Azura picked up the heavy pen.
9.5
Blaire's mother gave her a ruthless ultimatum: find a husband today, or never call her mother again.
Desperate to escape the suffocating control and disastrous blind dates, Blaire agreed to a fake marriage with a stranger she met through an old woman.
She thought she was marrying a dirt-poor salesman drowning in mortgage debt.
They lived in a rundown Queens apartment and split the living expenses fifty-fifty.
He drove a sputtering Toyota Camry, established extreme territorial rules, and treated her like a gold-digging biohazard.
When she accidentally tripped and spilled hot soup on him, he didn't help her up, instead accusing her of using pathetic tricks to seduce him.
Her own mother even crashed their apartment, ruthlessly mocking his pathetic financial state and calling him a total loser.
Blaire endured his coldness and extreme germaphobia, genuinely pitying him for his stressful, low-paying job.
She refunded his money and defended his dignity, refusing to take advantage of a struggling man.
But she couldn't understand why this supposedly broke guy possessed such a lethal, commanding aura, or why an incredibly expensive cashmere blanket mysteriously appeared on her when she was freezing on the couch.
Until her brother called with a shocking warning.
"Blaire, the name on your marriage certificate belongs to the notoriously secretive billionaire CEO of New York's top financial syndicate!"
Blaire laughed out loud, completely unaware that behind the bedroom door, her "broke" husband was frantically ordering his PR team to bury his true identity.
8.7
I was trapped in a greasy diner by my own mother.
She was forcing me to marry my abusive cousin because he had paid her twenty thousand dollars.
To escape, I used a contract marriage app and begged a complete stranger to marry me at City Hall that very day.
Ethan drove a cheap Ford and wore a plain suit. I thought he was just an ordinary guy needing a fake wife.
When my mother found out, she brought thugs to destroy my flower shop—my only home and livelihood.
To protect Ethan from her endless extortion, I shielded him and screamed that he was bankrupt and drowning in credit card debt.
My mother fled in disgust, and Ethan took me into his apartment for the night.
But out of trauma and habit, I locked my bedroom door, muttering that he must be old and desperate.
He stormed out into the freezing night, leaving me terrified that I had ruined my only lifeline.
I didn't understand why he was so furiously offended, completely unaware that my "broke" husband was actually the most ruthless billionaire in New York, and I had just trampled his massive ego.
The next morning, his face was a mask of ice as he dragged me back to City Hall to annul the marriage and get rid of me.
"Annulment. Now," he demanded.
But the clerk just popped her gum and slid a pink paper across the counter.
"State law changed. Mandatory thirty-day cooling-off period."